Episode 232: The 5-year vision
Where do I wanna be in five years? And then what are some steps that I can take to get there? In today's episode, Fiona talks about the importance of having a 5-year vision as a business owner. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Questions to ask yourself
Mapping your 5-year vision
Tools & Resources to help you
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
But I do think that sometimes it's really interesting. If nothing else just interesting to sit down and consider what the next five years look like. And I know as I'm saying this, there'll be people going, “Oh, that's so cliche.” It's like those job interview questions, like tell me where you see yourself in five years. But I think they're there for a purpose and things sometimes cliches are there for a reason. I think that when you stop and you really think about, “What am I working towards?” It can be quite confronting.
Welcome to episode 232 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. As you may be able to hear, I am smiling as I say that because I can't believe we're at 232 episodes, like far out that's. That's amazing. And I say we because there is a team behind me that helps every single week with this, my wonderful OBM Yricka, the amazing Scott from Soundmind Editing who edits all our podcasts always has from day one. And we also have a transcribing service as well that we use. So there is a whole host of people creating this podcast, not just myself, but I'm the lucky one who gets to sit in front of the mic and talk to you every single week. So today it is a coaching episode and I'm really gonna dive deep into something that I think I don't feel like I say this all the time, but I do feel like it's something we don't look at enough as small business owners.
I think at the start we do. And then the longer you are in business, probably the less likely that you're actually doing this. And as you may know, if you listen to this, we often talk about money, mindset, marketing, brand, your systems and processes, and just the general life of a creative, small business owner. We have a bunch of courses that are available anytime. They're all online, and self-paced over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/shop. And all of those elements that I've mentioned will be talked about in today's coaching session. So stick around for that and before I get stuck into it, I just want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on this beautiful land on which I live and record this podcast. That is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
If you are like me based in Australia and you're seeing on the news yet again, another indigenous life lost in custody and in incarceration, we have the highest levels in Australia of this happening and it needs to stop and I'm gonna get off my soapbox. But I do think that if you're listening to this and you want to do something about what we are all witnessing in this country, you can definitely go and contact and donate to the Aboriginal Legal Service, and we will link to that in the show notes. If you've got a pen the website is alsnswact.org.au/donate the other place that you can go and donate if you have the means and want to do something about this is the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service. And you can find that just at https://www.vals.org.au/donate. All right, let's get into today's coaching episode. And just before we do, if you have a pen and paper, probably a good idea to grab it, or if you've got something that you can write notes on, if you are driving, or if you're walking at the gym doing something else, you can always find the show notes again at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast. Let's get into it.
So let's imagine for a minute that you are in September 2027, and you are looking back on the last five years. So from now September 2022, through to September 2027, what has changed? How old will you be? Where are you living? Do you still have your business? Have you sold it? Have you changed it? Have you closed it? Are you still running it? Are you still excited about it? These are some of the questions that I guess we often don't stop to ask ourselves. I think when we start a business, if you care to go down that path, we can come up with a business plan and you can get all excited and do the post-it notes and get really excited, more excited about the logo and the website and what your handle's gonna be on Instagram.
But outside of that, once you get into business, we can so often get consumed in the day-to-day or even in the day to the next three months and really like, “Okay, I just need to see what's coming up next week.” And that's enough. I don't really need to plan. Now, I'm not saying that everyone needs to plan. Look at the pandemic, even the best-laid plans can completely go awry when external forces come into play. But I do think that sometimes it's really interesting if nothing else just interesting to sit down and consider what the next five years look like. And I know as I'm saying this, there'll be people going, “Oh, that's so cliche.” It's like those job interview questions, like tell me where you see yourself in five years. But I think they're there for a purpose and things sometimes cliches are there for a reason.
I think that when you stop and you really think about like, “What am I working towards?” It can be quite confronting in a lot of ways, because you'll be like, “Oh, well I have everything I want.” Or maybe you're like, “Oh actually, in five years I don't wanna be doing this.” I can't think of anything worse than doing this, for example. And so one of the things I wanted to talk about today is how to actually take that from this random concept of like, “What's your five-year plan” to nutting out a couple of ideas. It won't take you long, might take you half an hour. If you've got that or 20 minutes even to really think about, am I moving in the direction that I want to be moving? Or am I just moving in the direction that life has maybe gently guided me into?
Maybe not so gently. And I totally am all for sometimes just floating and sitting back and, and letting life unfold, as it does. But equally, I think that it's important to sit down and figure out, “Okay, I'm on this ship, but who's steering the ship, and do I have any agency?” And do I wanna maybe steer it myself? And if so, where are we going? Like, where are we headed? And so I wanted to go through just a couple of questions that you can write down. If you've got a notepad and paper or just put them in your phone. Or like I said, you can find the podcast show notes at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast. So the first thing I guess is to figure out your age now I know age is just a number, but to figure out, in particular age, are there things associated with that age that you would like to achieve?
Because sometimes five years seems so far away and anyone that is a parent will know that sometimes that five years seems really long and tedious when you're in it. And then it seems so magical. And it will be gone in a blink when you're out of it. My eldest son is nine and a half. And yeah, I can say that when I think back to when he was four and a half, it really doesn't seem that long ago. And especially, his brother who is three it feels like sometimes he was just born or I was just pregnant with him. And then in a flash, it's gone. But at the same time, the days along the years are short, as they say, but one thing that you can do when you figure out your age is to think about, as a child, as a teenager, or as an early adult, or maybe even a couple of years ago, where would you like to be at that age?
Because anyone that has the choice to create a small business and anyone that's listening to this have some level of privilege education, access to tools to be able to listen to this stuff. We also have choice and privilege over where our future is going. Even if we don't feel like that all the time. And the first thing is to figure out in five years from now, from whenever you're listening to this episode, then how old will I be? The next thing you wanna think about is taking a few minutes and visualizing who is around you. So you may have children. You may not, you might want children. You may not, maybe you are well past that age and maybe you are thinking, “Well, I don't wanna have a business in five years. I'd really like to be retired.” Maybe you have plans to find a life partner or partner.
Maybe you have plans to live overseas. Maybe you have plans to do volunteer work. And so thinking about who is around me will also lead you to think about where am I, where am I physically and where am I mentally as well. So physically where's my location? And then mentally, maybe there are things that you'd like to work on letting go or upskilling or training yourself on. And so you wanna think about, in five years, I would like to maybe have let go of certain beliefs, maybe even just thinking about what are my beliefs that I'd like to let go of, or what are the things that I'd like to condition more. So these kinds of questions will help you at the start. And then the other thing is to think about when you think about who is around you.
So if it is family, whether it's a partner, children, or elderly parents, thinking about how old will they be and putting down their ages. I know for myself that my eldest in five years will be at high school, which just feels so far away, but already I'm like, “He's already halfway through primary school.” And again, it can go like a flash, even with all the homeschooling and everything else over the last few years. So in five years, he will be at high school. And that will mean that I'll have one at primary school, one at high school I'll have a different pathway to go, literally driving them to school, or maybe I won't drive them. Maybe they'll catch the bus. There are all these things to think about.
Also thinking about, I'm married to a wonderful husband, how old will he be and what will we wanna be doing at that age? Will we have one or two pay off certain things? Will we want to have traveled to certain places, if we don't have all these pandemic lockdowns again. And so thinking about that and trying to visualize what that looks like? Maybe you are living in a place that's not big enough if you wanna have children or maybe extend, or maybe have a life partner or something else, or maybe you wanna have part of your house that is your official office or your official kind of making station, or maybe you wanna create a studio in your house or the place that you live and where you are right now, doesn't allow you to do that.
And so there are all these things that you sort of wanna visualize, like “How does my life look” and also, how do I feel, how do I feel about my life? And we all wanna say “I feel so happy. And I'm all contented,” but that's not reality 24/7, everybody knows that but there might be things that you might think, I wanna have more energy or I wanna feel more fulfilled by my business, or I want to whatever the feeling is that you wanna have. So what you can do is just sort of jot down your ideas around that. If you want to, you can make them very structured, like with an Excel Sheet of who's what age and everything else, but it'll start giving you the foundations for the next tool that I'll walk you through.
So the next tool is not one that I've come up with. And actually, it is accredited to a guy in the 1960s by the name of Paul J. Meyer. He is known as one of the originators of like life coaching and the tool that I'm gonna show you or walk you through is very much used in life coaching. Now the tool is called The Wheel of Life and you may well know it, as soon as I said it, some people will know it. Some people will not. I often show it to people on client calls and they'll be like, “No, I've never heard of it.” And then when they see it, they're like, “No, I've totally heard of that.” Now I have to say that this is different from the Buddhist wheel of life. Although I have to say that looking at them, I also think that there may have been some inspiration drawn there, but the concept is that the wheel needs to turn.
It needs to be even. If you think about like the wheel of a bike if you have all these different spokes that are missing, or you have part of the wheel that is punctured or the whole wheel stops turning. And so the concept of the wheel of life is if you imagine a circle or a wheel, and you kind of divide that into however many categories, but usually about eight and in those eight or even 10 categories, you can list out the 10 areas of life that are really important to you. Now, this is why you wanna have that first time to visualize, where am I gonna be? How old am I? What do I want? What do I wanna feel like, all sorts of things before you create The Wheel of Life?
So The Wheel of Life, if you wanna create one, in the present time, and then one for the future. So if you create, firstly, you wanna think about what are the 10 most important areas of your life. And if you need some help the stock standard ones are your career or let's say your business, your money, your finances, personal relationship as in a romantic relationship, like a significant other, your health is a big one. Family and friends is another one. Personal growth might be another one. And even in the health, you might wanna divide that up to like physical health and then emotional or mental health. You can basically create any category that you want. You might have one for travel or one for fun, or one for fulfillment or one for spirituality or religion if you are religious or whichever elements that you wanna have.
So not everyone has to have the same 10. We all have different lives. We all have different goals in life. We all have different things, that are important to us. And so you can come up with whatever those 10 are, but try and make them full for your life that it's full, that you're not missing anything major in there. And so in each of those, if you imagine that you've got this circle and you've kind of divided it up into eight or 10 pieces of pie and within each of those, you have a range from zero being at the middle of the wheel, right in the middle, all the way up to let's say 8 or 10 again. So just to make that a bit clearer, cause I know it's hard when you are visualizing something and someone's talking, so you have a circle, that's the wheel.
You have divided that circle up into, let's say eight parts. So you've got almost like eight pieces of pie equal. And then in the middle of that, you've got a dot. So in the very middle, like the nucleus then in each of those triangles, each of those is cut into 10 pieces. So you have almost like lines. And what you wanna do is think about on a scale of 1 or 0 to 10, how great that part of your life is right now, or it doesn't have to be great. Maybe that's the wrong word, but how strong that part is. So let's say you have physical health as one and you have another one right next to it, which is mental health. Maybe you're like, “You know what? My mental health is really great.”, I'm doing meditation, I'm seeing a psychologist, whatever the things are that you need to do to create your great mental health, you've got a balance in your life or your work in your life integrate well, but maybe physical health needs some work.
And so on the scale of one to 10 in each of those little triangles in the mental health, you might put a nine, I really love where I'm at right now, but in your physical health, you might put a three. Maybe you are like me. You've had a setback with your back. Although I have to say, it's definitely on the mend. So thank you to everyone who's sent me messages. So in that, you want to mark yourself and there's no right or wrong. There's no good or bad here. You're just assessing, like you're almost being an observer to the life, to the 10 or 8 things that you've thought are very important in your wheel of life. And then you're marking within each, a little dot of like, where am I currently? And what you'll usually see is that once you join the dots between the different, I wanna call them quadrants, but they're not quadrants between the different sections, the little triangles in your wheel.
You'll often see that it isn't straight, it isn't a circle that could actually turn, let’s say if one's one triangle is mark 3 and one is mark 10. There's quite a difference between them. So when you try and join the dot, it'll come across more like a triangle or a straight line than a circle. And what you wanna get to is where all the parts of your life are in some sort of similarity so that the wheel can turn. That's the concept. The concept is also to see which parts of your life need a bit more work or help. And I know you'll be listening to this thinking, “Is this a life coaching course? Or is this a business coaching podcast?” It's a bit of both, but as business owners, we wanna have a look at these things because they impact the way that we run our business.
Let's say the physical health one, for example, for me in the last few months, I've really had to change some of the things that I was doing with work. I've had to pull back on certain things. I've had to delay certain things because I needed more time to focus on my back, to go to the physio, to go to the doctor, to go to the neurosurgeon, to go to the acupuncturist, all the people. And so that just needed to happen. And so my health, my physical health has really impacted, well, not really because I generally work from home and I generally work online. But if I was say packing orders, or if I was having to drive around, I was an interior designer or something that would really impact. And so you wanna be thinking about what are these sections, firstly, then how would I rate myself from 1 to 10 in these sections?
This is where it kind of comes to the five years. How will I change? What needs to be amended, adapted, and focused on put effort into, in order for me to get where I want to go? So if you then remember how you felt at the start of this conversation, where do I wanna be in five years and how do I feel? And who's around me and where am I located? And where am I mentally? Where am I physically, you can then create another wheel of life that shows the markings of which you would like to improve or grow in those different sections within The Wheel of Life. So it can be a tough thing to sit down, firstly, and figure out what are the most important elements of my life, the top 10, the top 8, and then where am I right now in those.
One of them might be a business, maybe like, “you know what, I really need to put more effort into this,” or maybe I need to outsource, or the stress, maybe one of those areas that you've put in is stress. And you are sky-high right now. And you need to get that lower. Maybe one of those areas is knowledge about your business or the industry that you're in. So whatever those areas are, you can have it now where you are now and then where you wanna be in five years. And of course, don't just mark the five years, I'm 10 out of 10 in every single area, but consider what does that look like? And once you have those two wheels, the one for now, and the one for five years, what you wanna do in the middle is to create a bridge.
And so the bridge is really looking at these eight or 10 items and coming up with at least three things that you can do in the next months or weeks, or days or years, that will create that bridge from where you are now to where you want to be. And it sounds so simple when we do it, but it is something that we don't do. We don't sit down and really focus on this stuff enough. We kind of quite often, especially the longer you're in business, it's like, “Yes, things are working and money's coming in” and maybe you're growing your team and everything's kind of plotting along and putting out fires where you need to, and then you wake up and you're like, “It's been five years.” And am I where I want to be in life, but also in business, this is a business podcast after all.
So you want to think about what are the elements that will bridge that. And that could be a really hard place to look at as well. So if it makes it easier, you wanna think about something you can do this week, which I know sounds kind of crazy when you're like, “You've given me five years and now you've given me a deadline of seven days.” But thinking about is there one thing that you could do this week? And maybe one of the elements is spirituality and you're like, “ I've let that slide.” And, that it's important to you. And so you might decide, “You know what, I'm actually going to read a book or I'm going to do a meditation,” or maybe you had a particular synagogue or place that you used to do your feed meditation, or maybe something that feels good for you.
Maybe it's just a beautiful park. And so you're like, “I'm gonna go there this week.” I'm just gonna go there. Maybe you're really low in the family one. And you're like, “You know what, actually, I probably need to call my sibling” or I need to stop work that little bit early and make sure that I get your kids' event that they've got on. And so there's always things that we can do in that bridge in the one-week period. The next is to think about 12 to 18 months. So in the next 12 to 18 months, what am I gonna do? And then the last one is kind of three years. So three years from now, where would I like to be in these places? And what could I have done now in that kind of one week or months or whatever it is and then 12 to 18 months
Then in three years, what's something that's going to bridge that in three years, maybe one of them is volunteering. You'd like to volunteer more. And so next week you might decide I'm actually gonna contact that place that I've seen advertised in my local Facebook group. And I'm going to see if they're accepting volunteers right now, and maybe you don't start for six months, but you just, you're putting the word in 12 to 18 months. You might have liked to be having a full-time, not a full-time, but a regular volunteering role with a particular charity or cause, and maybe you're even connecting that somehow to your business. And then in three years, maybe you'd like to have fundraised enough to make a real impact on whatever it is that the cause or charity or not for profit or whatever it is that you are volunteering in.
So let's say you are volunteering in literacy for children, right? And let's say next week, you're like, “You know what, I'm actually going to contact my local library and see if they need somebody to do reading,” or maybe I'm gonna contact the local food bank and see if they do know anywhere that needs literacy help or I don't know why I said food bank, but a literacy foundation. And then in 12 to 18 months, you're like, “you know what, I, I'm gonna do a really great event that is going to fundraise.” And I'm gonna work with setting up systems in our own business so that we can really contribute to that. And then in three years, maybe you're going to actually take a trip somewhere. So maybe you are going to work with the indigenous literacy foundation and maybe you've fundraised and done all of this great stuff.
Maybe you're going to go into another part of the world and talk to them and try and help with literacy. There. Maybe you are going to work with people that have come into your country to speak your language, to work with them. Whatever it is you wanna really think about, what does that bridge look like? Because we can all think, “Oh yeah, I wanna be here in five years,” but not actually think about what are the steps to get there. And so that's another part of The Wheel of Life exercise. I mean, it's not a traditional part. It's kind of a part that I've made up, but you have your wheel of life. Now you have your wheel of life in five years and then you have the bridge and within the bridge, what's something I can do this week?
What's something I can do in the next 12 to 18 months? And then what's something in three years that I'd really like to work towards in relation to this particular area of The Wheel of Life? So I know that's a lot to take in and it's quite heavy and it can be quite confronting. And this is the thing. I think people don't do this because we think it's such a big amount of work. But all of that, this entire episode has been less than 25 minutes so far. So all of that, you could sit down, you could work that out and I reckon in less than an hour, even less than 30 minutes, you would be able to nut this out and give yourself some sort of direction. And then a really important part of that is once you've done that to look at those plans and look at the plans for your business and really thinking about, are these aligning physical health, maybe it's as simple as like, what can I do this week?
Well, I could get a standing desk or I could get a chair or get a cushion or get a foot stall or get something for us. Maybe if you are in a store and you're working all day, maybe it's like, I'm actually gonna set up like a cute little corner out the back. Maybe it's near the bathroom, the staff bathrooms, or something. And you're like, “I'm gonna just set up like a little corner with a little candle.” Maybe don't leave the candle on the whole time or something. That's a little refresh, relax, five-minute chair or 10-minute chair, sit back, relax, refresh. And that is a part of the bridge. So just to kind of recap on this, it's thinking about like, where do I wanna be in five years? And then how does that impact my business and what are the steps I'm going to take between where I am now and where I'm going to be?
And it's not always about improving yourself always like, “I've gotta be better.” I've going to push harder. I've gotta hustle, hustle, hustle. You know that I'm absolutely against hustle. I'm very much sidestepping the hustle. Find a way that can align with you that doesn't enable you or force you to have to hustle. But it is about thinking what are some small steps that I can take because every one of us has things that we want to change or amend or that go of, and that we don't wanna carry with us for the next five years or maybe that we want to increase in the next five years. And so it's literally a small exercise to think about where am I right now. Where do I wanna be in five years? And then what are some steps that I can take to get there?
So as I said, all of these will be available on the show notes, which you can find at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast. And in this instance, another forward slash 232 as this is episode 232. So that is it. If you want to and have enjoyed this episode, I would so appreciate it. If you could leave a review, it just really helps us get found on Apple and Spotify and just helps other small business owners. Maybe there's somebody out there who really needs to hear about The Wheel of Life right now. Thank you for listening and I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you wanna get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram @mydailybusinesscoach.
